Tuesday October 16, 2007 4:19 pm

Robots Fooled by Optical Illusions

Researchers at University College in London have discovered that robots cannot detect optical illusions. The team installed software in bots to give them abilities for processing visual cues into an artificial nerve network. For example, in a simultaneous brightness contrast of two identical tiles, a human will see one tile with a dark background as lighter than one in front of a paler background. The program fooled the software just as it would a person. Lead study author R. Beau Lotto and team found that vision is composed of experiences rather than absolutes. We just think of it as a one-up on robots for us humans.